Female Marine on trial for adultery

Defense calls it rape after night of boozing

CAMP PENDLETON  A female Marine who says she was raped by another Marine in her squadron after a night of drinking is being tried at Camp Pendleton by special court martial for adultery and impeding an investigation.

The case involves two staff sergeants who were assigned to Marine Aviation Logistics Squadron 39 at Camp Pendleton in March 2012, when they had sex in a hotel room after several hours of drinking.

On Nov. 11, 2012, the staff sergeant was charged with adultery, impeding an investigation and making false statements that “I was intoxicated and couldn’t consent to sex,” according to the charge sheet released by the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing.

On Monday she pleaded not guilty. If convicted of any of the three charges, the military judge could sentence her to as much as 12 months in jail, forfeiture of pay and a dishonorable discharge from the military.

“The command does take sexual assault with the utmost gravity, and has decided to pursue this route to ensure that the sexual assault response process remains effective and maintains integrity for victims,” said 1st Lt. Tyler Balzer, a spokesman for the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing.

The female Marine charged with adultery is married to another Marine, who works at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar. The couple, both combat veterans, have been married for 17 years and have two children.

She was investigated after her husband reported the sexual encounter to her command. The woman had told her husband she was acting strangely because she had cheated on him. She did not mention that she was sexually assaulted until after she learned she would be tried for adultery, according to court testimony.

“I made a poor decision. I shot the flame up in the wrong way. I’m paying for it now and my wife is paying for it,” the husband said. “I was spiteful and I was angry. I didn’t have all the facts. Now I have to watch her go through all this. It’s devastating.”

The Marine who had sex with the defendant testified Monday that he didn’t know she was married and that she never appeared too intoxicated to give her consent, for instance by slurring her speech or stumbling. He is a divorced father of two children.

He is not being named because he has not been charged with a crime. The defendant is not being named because she reported she is a sexual assault victim.

At the court martial that began Monday, the prosecution and defense sparred over whether the defendant – a 93-pound woman who is 4 feet 10 inches tall – had about twice the amount of blood alcohol content as the legal limit for drunkenness or three times the limit, based on estimates from their respective military toxicologists who reviewed tallies of how much alcohol she drank that night.

The defendant initially denied that she had gone anywhere with the Marine from her squadron and told him to tell investigators that he dropped her off at a bar with her friends. The defense said she failed to immediately report sexual assault because she didn’t want to go through the trauma of what she thought would probably be a pointless investigation resulting in no punishment for her attacker.